


Thinking, Or Lack Thereof

by amandaithink



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Ficandchips, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Jealous Tenth Doctor, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24073828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaithink/pseuds/amandaithink
Summary: The Doctor ruins what was supposed to be a relaxing day on an alien planet, getting them thrown in jail. Rose is not amused.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 25
Kudos: 94





	Thinking, Or Lack Thereof

**Author's Note:**

  * For [more1weasley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/more1weasley/gifts).



> For the prompt: cuteness time spent in a planet's jail because the Doctor did/said something out of jealousy? The Doctor is denying, of course, Time Lords don't get jealous. And Rose is disgruntled that the nice day they had planned was going to be spent in jail....
> 
> Special thanks to [more1weasley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/more1weasley/pseuds/more1weasley) for the prompt _and_ for giving it a quick beta (ahaha XD)!
> 
> All mistakes are mine, otherwise I own nothing.

The metal door slammed behind them, there was a clicking sound as automatic locks engaged, followed by retreating footsteps as the Doctor and Rose were left alone in their cell. He gave the place a quick look - not the worst prison they’d been in, that was for sure. Bed, toilet, sink with a little mirror even. No window, though, and that was unfortunate.

Different escape plans began to race through his head as the Doctor turned to Rose, opening his mouth to begin sorting through their options.

“Shut it,” she said with a huff, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

Oh, she did not look happy. Not at all. The Doctor nervously rubbed a hand through his hair, trying not to wince. While Rose had never slapped him, he had a feeling that she might, and that in all likelihood it would put Jackie Tyler’s slap to shame.

“Just what was going through your head back there, anyway?” she asked. “Explain it to me.”

The Doctor suddenly wished that they had been placed in separate cells.

**Earlier that day …**

It was supposed to be a relaxing day. They were walking down a busy street on the planet Shemarl. The Doctor had managed to successfully land them during the brief window of time where the weather was safe for humans - the very beginning of their spring, which to Rose felt like summer. They walked hand in hand as he led her toward a shop he hoped would have the part he needed for the TARDIS.

“So, what else is there to do on Shemarl?” Rose asked him, swinging their arms back and forth.

“Well, the province we’re in is famous for two things,” he told her. “The crystal reefs off the coast of the bay near where we parked the TARDIS, and this dish they have. It’s called Mnisztk. Tastes kind of like a mix between strawberries and lavender, with the consistency of melted ice cream if that ice cream also was a bit fizzy.”

“Menis- Mani-”

“MiN-IsZT-K.”

“Mnisztk. Fizzy creamy stuff. Alright,” she nodded, smiling up at him. “We gonna try some?”

“Oh absolutely! We can go once I find the part I’m looking for,” he nodded, grinning back.

It had been such a nice day, really. In hindsight, this is where he figures it had all gone wrong. Well, started to go wrong, at least.

“You’re always ages lookin’ at space junk,” Rose complained. Before he could tell her that it wasn’t ‘space junk’, she continued on. “This is a peaceful planet, yeah? Why don’t I go look at some of the other shops while you hunt around for gadgets.”

“I do not hunt around for gadgets!” the Doctor asserted. “If I happen to find a few extra items while working to maintain my magnificent timeship, which you take for granted I might add, it’s only because I can see their potential uses. In the future, or for emergencies.”

“Or to add to your collection of broken toasters,” she snickered.

“You know what, fine, you can go look around at trinkets and clothes that will never save our lives one day. We can meet back here in … an hour?”

“It is going to take you way more than an hour,” Rose asserted. “Last time we went lookin’ for parts, we were there for like 5 hours!”

“You’re exaggerating. It was only 3 hours, 42 minutes and 56 seconds,” he informed her, nearly rolling his eyes. “But fine, let’s make it two hours. This place isn’t nearly as vast as the warehouse on the moon of Luron.”

“Alright then,” she agreed, letting go of his hand. “See ya in two hours!” 

After giving her mobile a quick glance to keep track of the time, Rose gave him a little wave and began to walk toward the nearest boutique. The Doctor watched her go, distracted for a moment by the way the skirt of her sundress hugged her swaying hips and flowed around her thighs. The combination of the teal dress and her blonde hair made Rose stick out brilliantly against the drab buildings and the planet’s red sky. It took him a moment to snap out of it and continue walking to the shop he had in mind, berating himself as he went for his inability to control his own thoughts when it came to Rose Tyler. He was a Time Lord. He wasn’t supposed to think about those sorts of things, but then again he had never really been a model example of his species.

“Right, two hours,” he muttered to himself. The brief time apart would probably be a good thing.

In the end, Rose had been right about his - erm - _enthusiasm_ for alien technology. By the time he’d given any thought to how long he’d been, the Doctor was already nearly five minutes late (4 minutes and 34 seconds, to be precise). After paying for his parts and getting back to their meeting place, he had been keeping her waiting for 13 minutes and 19 seconds - or so he thought. Rose seemed to be nowhere in sight.

Hoping that she hadn’t gone looking for him or went back to the TARDIS already, the Doctor began to slowly walk up the street, back the way he had just come, keeping his eyes peeled. It wasn’t long before he caught a glimpse of pink and yellow and teal. He quickly crossed the street to find Rose talking to one of the natives, a tall male with light grey skin, black hair and violet eyes. They were both smiling, and as he got closer he could hear Rose’s laughter.

“Hello!” he greeted them both, forcing his mouth into a grin. “I’m the Doctor! I see you’ve met Rose.”

“Greetings,” the Shemarlian replied. He had a deep voice and a lyrical accent, and now that he was up close the Doctor realized that Rose’s new ‘friend’ wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I am Riztaek.”

“Weeeell, nice to meet you Riz, I’m sure, but Rose and I had best be going. Lots to do today and all.” He grabbed Rose’s hand, intending to leave immediately. His skin felt all tingly, and not in a pleasant way.

“Wait, Doctor,” Rose complained, digging her heels and refusing to budge. “We were still talking. Riztaek was saying-”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure. Really, though it’s nearly midday,” the Doctor complained. He had stopped tugging on her arm, but was still ready to leave. 

“So?” she hissed, “You’re being _rude_. _Again_.”

He rolled his eyes before turning back to face the tall, muscular alien that Rose was just _so_ keen on talking to for some reason.

“You were saying?” The grin on the Doctor’s face now felt painful, more like a barring of teeth than an actual smile.

“If you must go, I do not want to keep you,” Riztaek said, politely. For some reason this just made everything feel _so much worse_. Because now Rose would think less of him, because apparently he couldn’t help being rude and obviously this Shemarlian bloke was just trying to make him look worse at this point. 

“Oh, sure,” the Doctor snarked, losing what little self restraint he may have had when it came to his gob, “that’s just great. We can’t leave when I want to go, it’s only by _your_ leave. I’d like to know what was so important. Obviously Rose wants to stay. Shall I give you two a moment?”

“Erm, well … he was sayin’, about the crystal reefs-” Rose began slowly, before he interrupted.

“The crystal reefs?! Really?! That’s all this is about? Riiiiiiight. I suppose he wanted to take you out on a transparent platform at sunset so that you could see the light refracting off the crystals, making the water pulse with colour?” he drawled sarcastically, even though the Doctor had intended to do exactly that.

“Well … yeah.” She ripped her hand out of his grip and placed her hands on her hips.

“That’s hardly a clever line _here_ ,” the Doctor felt the need to inform her. “Though it is obvious that you’re an off-worlder so I suppose he-”

“ _He_ is right here,” Riztaek piped in, “and you, sir, are bringing great insult to me and my family with your insinuations. It shall not be tolerated.”

It all went downhill from there.

**Now ...**

“Weeeeell, I suppose it would have been good to know that he and his wife own a premier platform rental company,” the Doctor allowed.

“Oh, right. Well maybe we coulda covered that if you hadn’t been so jealous that you wouldn’t even let him talk!” Rose accused, turning away from him and stomping over to the bed where she sat down and began to glare at the wall.

“ _Jealous_?! I’m a Time Lord! Time Lords don’t get _jealous_.”

“Yeah, right.”

He wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. Or at least, he didn’t intend to. She was making it very difficult, though, with the way she was no longer talking to him or even looking at him. A full minute didn’t even pass before he gave in.

“I really wasn’t! I was just … _concerned_ that you were going to be taken advantage of by- and really, what kind of respectable businessman goes around shirtless like that? How was I supposed to know?” Even to his own ears the defense was pitiful. 

“The kind who works at the beach.” Rose finally turned toward him, eyebrow raised.

“Well, we were hardly near the beach,” he huffed, sitting down next to her. The Doctor took it as a good sign when she didn’t immediately get up and walk to the other side of the room. “Excuse me for assuming he was another one of your pretty boys.” The last part had been mumbled to himself, but unfortunately she still heard him. Of course she did, that was just how this day was determined to go.

“Excuse you? _My_ pretty boys?! What are you on about now?” She stood up and glared down at him.

This was it, he was sure of it. Rose would slap him, likely into his next regeneration. He opened his mouth, but words wouldn’t come out. Nothing he could think of was likely to help.

“Tell me, Doctor, when was the last time I was hangin’ around some bloke?” she asked.

“Erm … ah, well … not including Riz?”

He watched in terrified fascination as Rose’s fists clenched at her sides. Maybe he was wrong about the slapping - maybe she was going to _punch_ him.

“Right, yes, no, of course not Riz because he is married and you were certainly not int- ah ah um, Mickey?” he guessed, and quickly realized that he had guessed wrong and should have _not_ mentioned her ex and childhood friend who they had very recently left in a parallel world. “Wait! No! Of course not Mickey, you said that was over ages ago, so … Adam? Or no, Jack?”

“Adam.”

“Ol’ door in the head. Right. Not Jack, really?”

“We may have had a bit of a flirt, but look who’s talkin’.”

The Doctor was a little offended, but resisted the urge to comment. That was a door best left slammed shut and locked, never to be seen again. Instead he just sighed and laid down fully on the bed. Maybe it would be best if he just went back to figuring out an escape plan. Then they could go back to the TARDIS, onto the next adventure, and never speak of this again.

Except Rose was obviously still mad at him, and he hated it.

Except Rose had just sat down at the head of the tiny cot of a bed, and even upside down he could see that she was upset - anger somehow being traded for sadness.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“For what? For being jealous and gettin’ us thrown in here? For ruining a perfectly nice day? Or for insinuating that I travel around with you just tryin’ to pick up blokes?”

“All of it. I’m sorry.”

“So you admit it, then,” she half laughed, “you _were_ jealous.”

He had kind of walked right into that one, hadn’t he? The Doctor let out another sigh and was surprised when he felt Rose’s fingers carding through his hair. He shut his eyes and was determined not to question it. Usually she only did this on the TARDIS, either when they were trying to wind down from a stressful adventure or on the rare nights when he tried to sleep and then had a particularly bad nightmare. He loved it when she did this.

“Doctor?”

“Hmm?”

“You know there’s no reason for you to be jealous like that every time I happen to be talking to a guy,” she said.

“Is that so?”

He wasn’t sure where she was going with this. Well, he could make assumptions, but best not to. Those would only make things worse. It didn’t matter, anyway … whatever he might feel. There was nothing to be done about it. 

The Doctor waited for her to continue speaking, but she said nothing. After a few moments, her hands left his hair.

“Why’d you stop?” he found himself asking, even though he hadn’t meant to.

Turns out it didn’t matter, as he got no response anyway.

“Rose?” he sat up and turned to look at her. 

She had gotten up and was now leaning against the concrete wall, her arms crossed. He had thought that she was starting to cheer up, but now it seemed she had become unhappy again all of the sudden. It was hard to keep up, honestly.

“What’s wrong?”

For a moment their eyes met, but then she turned hers toward the ceiling and then finally the wall.

“It’s- I don’t- never mind. It’s nothin’.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

Rose moved her hands to her hips, crossed them again, stamped a foot against the floor and then began pacing the length of their cell. The Doctor decided it was probably in his best interest to draw as little attention to himself as possible. While she was usually incredibly easy to spend time with, Rose did sometimes have a temper. It had never been directed at _him_ quite like this, but there was a first time for everything.

“It’s just, just … I don’t know what you want, okay?” she finally turned to him. “We never talk about it, whatever this is between us. So could you just tell me? Clearly, with words? Because we need to stop tip toeing around it. It’s driving me mad! Because just when I think, ‘okay, we’re definitely _just_ friends’ you go and do something ridiculously sweet, or you get stupidly jealous for no reason. I mean, obviously I’m- I’m not gonna- _god_ , just say something!”

Unfortunately, the Doctor was finding himself quite speechless. Possibly for the first time in his life. Well, at least _this_ life.

“Doctor?”

He had a decision to make.

“Are you gonna say _anything_?”

This is not what he thought was going to happen today. Not something he _ever_ planned on talking about.

“You know what, fine. Forget I said anything.” Rose turned away, heading toward the other side of the small room.

No more time for thinking. Action. Decision. He was brilliant, after all, so even if he had no idea what was going on in his brain at this exact moment, chances were it had already solved everything for him. He stood up, opening his mouth to say something he was sure would be great, whatever it was. Two long strides and he was caught up with her, arm reaching out and turning her around. Now he was going to say something. 

Except he didn’t say anything.

He didn’t say anything, because instead of doing anything _remotely_ reasonable, he leaned down and _kissed her_.

He kissed her, and it felt as though every single neuron in his brain surged into action all at once. And then abruptly shut off. All in the span of .02 seconds. Once his brain came online again, there was an influx of information bombarding him, all so quickly that even _he_ couldn’t keep up with his own thoughts.

_The feel of Rose’s lips. The way she tastes. I’m snogging Rose Tyler. The chemical compositions of the different hormones in her system. What am I bloody doing right now? Rose’s lips are so soft. How she smells. Why haven’t we always done this? She tastes like mint, and really unacceptable raspberry chapstick, and tea, and_ Rose _. Her pulse. The feel of her lips moving against his. This is a horrible idea. Her hormone levels_ might _be arousal related, then again it could just be shock. Her breath against his face. Wait, Rose Tyler is_ kissing me back- _! -! She smells like lilacs, and 21st century-Earth cosmetics, and coconut bath products, and the Shemarl breeze, and_ Rose _. How was he ever going to make himself_ stop _snogging Rose Tyler? Her heart rate is elevated, but not dangerously so - perhaps just the right kind of elevated. She just made a noise - soft noise, almost a sigh, seems happy or pleased. There is absolutely no reason at all to stop snogging Rose Tyler._

Once he finally finished processing (or stopped paying attention because a decision had been reached) the Doctor gave himself over to the experience. And so it was Rose who ended up pulling away, gasping for breath as she did so.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, not exactly sure what he was apologizing for - many things at once, really. Too many to count, at least right now. His entire being felt oddly fuzzy. He was very disoriented.

“Sorry that you just kissed me?” she asked, worry evident on her face.

“Not at all.” The words left his mouth without any thought put into them. Apparently logic and reason were taking a holiday today. The Doctor wasn’t sure if he cared, just then.

“You sure?”

“I’m never sure of _anything_.”

That had to have been the wrong thing to say, but Rose just burst out laughing. The Doctor wasn’t sure when his respiratory bypass had engaged, but he suddenly realized that he wasn’t breathing.

“What? What’s so funny about that?”

She just kept laughing.

“Rose?! Why are you laughing? Are you okay?” He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned down so that they were at eye level as he began a quick visual examination - he was beginning to feel concerned. 

“I’m fine,” she giggled, gently pushing him away. “‘S just you finally admitting that you’re just as clueless as the rest of us.” She barely managed to get the last bit out before peals of laughter made it once again impossible for her to talk.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the small smile fighting it’s way onto his face. Eventually Rose was able to gain control of herself.

“Sooooo …” He didn’t know where to go from here. She had wanted him to say something, something about what they were to each other, and in all fairness he _had_ meant to say something. But he hadn’t. And the, er, _demonstration_ hadn’t exactly been planned.

“So?”

Obviously Rose wasn’t going to make things easy on him.

“I, well, it’s … complicated.”

“‘S that so?” Her grin was a little too smug for his liking.

“Yes,” the Doctor asserted, straightening and adjusting his jacket, “as a matter of fact, it is. There’s a lot of …”

“Baggage?” she guessed, doing a poor job at not grinning.

“That is _not_ what I was going to say.”

“Overthinking?” Rose continued her guessing game.

“Inter … species … stuff,” he mumbled, regretting trying to do any of this human-y talking rubbish in the first place. Especially when he could have just tried kissing her again. Not that he should kiss her again, but … having snogged Rose Tyler once, it was rather difficult for the thought of it to leave his head.

“Interspecies stuff?” Her brow furrowed. “So this is just more of the whole ‘you’re human and I’m “the last of the Time Lords” and 900 years old’ thing? Really?”

The Doctor tried not to be insulted by the air quotes she had put around ‘last of the Time Lords’, but he was pretty sure his face twitched as she did it. He didn’t know how to respond to that anyway, if she obviously thought it was such a joke. Rose surprised him by stepping closer and putting her hands on his cheeks, looking him in the eye.

“I don’t care about any of that. I care about _you_. And … don’t you think, if we feel the way we do about each other, it’s better to be happy when you can? In the time we’ve got with each other? Because aren’t the good memories what’s supposed to get you through the bad stuff?”

Rose was so human. So _delightfully_ human.

It was a beautiful sentiment, but one he doubted was true. Even so, he _wanted_ her to be right. Wanted her to justify this for him. So he kissed her again, hoping that maybe this would be enough. Because he didn’t have words for any of this. No easy reference points to tell her what it is he wanted. No way to simplify the differences between Time Lords and humans when it came to anything like what he felt for her.

His time sense didn’t exactly fail him. It was still _there_ , of course. There was nothing wrong with him. It had just … moved completely out of his awareness, in a way the Doctor wasn’t sure he had ever experienced before. So when Rose once again pulled away to breathe, he had no idea how much time had passed.

“So, is that a yes?” she asked him, and it took a moment for him to remember exactly what they had been talking about. His mind once again felt like someone had managed to stuff cotton balls into it.

“It’s … yes. Yes.”

Of course it wasn’t going to actually be _that_ easy. The universe never allowed for things in his life to be _easy_. But it was a start, and he was going to take it.

Her answering smile lit up her face and made it all worth it.

“I was going to take you,” the Doctor found himself blurting out, unprompted. “To see the crystal reefs. I had wanted to take you. I’m sorry that we ended up here instead.”

“Here ended up not being so bad,” Rose said, her smile widening and her tongue peeking out from between her teeth. 

_No_ , he thought, _no it hadn’t_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Kudos/comments always appreciated <3  
> I haven't posted a dw fic in FOREVER (and never on AO3) so I would love to hear your feedback!!


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